rDesign

Yes - Firefox on both my iPad and iPhone 5S had the issues that I oultined in that post. Chrome was installed on my iPhone and had the same issues; I'll install Chrome on my iPad to see how it works and post back my results to that thread.

Personally, I like Dynamo Primer's 'GitBook' platform UI/UX much better than the current Vw Help File. The Dynamo Primer 'Index', with its indented outline numbering, is much more conducive to browsing than the current Vw Help File 'Index', which is not indented and hides topics outside your current topic. It is very difficult to browse the current Vw Help File. Hosting it inside the Vw Help would be acceptable as long as the browser compatibility issues with mobile devices on iOS 9 get fixed, and soon. I had to laugh at your statement that the Vw2016 Help File is 'already a little more platform-friendly', as this has not been my experience.

Awesome JimW! Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear that we're thinking along the same lines regarding how the Marionette tutorials / info should be presented: clean and simple, step-by-step. Just having Marionette included as part of the Dev Wiki pages, to me, diminishes both its importance and approachability. It deserves its own spotlight (i.e., website) separate from the technical jargon of the Dev Wiki.

Marionette was introduced with the intention that non-programmers could learn to use it without having any previous programming knowledge. Personally, I have not found that to be the case. This may be partially because Marionette is still very new and not fully documented, but even if it were, it seems like Marionette's current implementation requires quite a bit of programming knowledge as evidenced by many of the threads in this Marionette forum. It is not in any way user-friendly or intuitive for the 'programming newbie'. Watching any of the thousands of tutorial videos on Grasshopper or Dynamo won't get you very far with Marionette. The written content and presentation on the Vw Dev Wiki has always been intended for a target audience of developers and programmers. It requires a good working knowledge of VS and Python to understand any part of it, and probably most Vw users have no need to ever visit it. In addition to being very 'code heavy', the Dev Wiki is also very 'text heavy', without many pictures or diagrams. Graphically, it is the exact opposite of what the training material for a graphical scripting language like Marionette should look like. Just providing a single-page listing the name and simple description of each node is not enough (especially since it's the same info that you get by clicking on the Node's OIP 'Description' button). We need to have examples of how to use each node including what are its accepted inputs and its expected outputs. The Marionette - Implement a Node page, which I believe is intended to be 'Introductory 101' level, is very heavy into required programming with lots of Python code. Personally, I did not find that page to be very intuitive or helpful; I became lost before I even started. The six Introductory video tutorials posted here are a good start - and certainly more of these videos will be welcome, but... What I think is needed is a separate, dedicated 'Marionette Primer' website along the lines of the Dynamo Primer. Simply putting more info on the Dev Wiki is not the best way to further expand knowledge about Marionette.

'Good and free' - well, you often get what you pay for - but a Google search for 'people 3ds free or 'people obj free' will bring up some options. You'll have to import them into Vw as either .3DS or .OBJ files, respectively. There is also the 3dWarehouse with collections of free 3D SketchUp people. HTH.

Thanks MarissaF, that explains it better. I thought I had noticed in playing around with some of the sample Marionette networks downloaded from the forum's Resource Sharing section that I did have to delete the output geometry before changing variables, otherwise you'd get multiple instances of the output geometry, exactly as you describe. Any explanations and best practices for creating custom Marionette nodes would be most welcome. Thanks.

The 'BIM In Practice' link in the 'Vectorworks Community Links' gives the following: I won't be tempted to make any cheap jokes, I won't...

@MarissaF: Yes - further explanation would be most helpful, maybe even a short tutorial. I don't see 'SetLinksObjects()' on the standard Marionette node list (obviously), and a 'Search' on the Dev Wiki for 'SetLinksObjects' yields no results - so I'm not sure how anyone would know that it's good practice. Is it something that is already coded inside the standard Vw geometry-producing nodes? Is it something that we need to add manually to any Custom geometry-producing nodes? Thanks.

I agree - having the ability to select RW modes (other than OpenGL) would be a good addition to the Clip Cube. But I think Vw would first need to add your requested 'Start / Stop Render' button for it to be functional. Or at least allow the Bitmap Render command to work with the Clip Cube.

Unless you're on OS X 10.11 El Capitan, you may need to repair your disk permissions. Disk Utility : VwKB It will help for future troubleshooting if you include your hardware, OS & Vw version info in your forum signature similar to mine.

@zoomer: No, you have the correct settings. Selecting any display mode other than wireframe or OpenGL deactivates the Clip Cube. In my previous post (edited for clarity), I was referring to using a 'Projected' Section VP, not the Clip Cube, to achieve *most* of what you were requesting: with the caveat that you would have to use a Section VP instead of the Clip Cube.

DomC - I'm happy to hear that my admittedly uninformed post was actually helpful!

@DomC: I am way out of my depth here, but maybe the Python 'unicodedata' module could help simplify things for you? Python 3.4 Documentation - Unicode HOWTO - Unicode Filenames

@ericjhberg: It's not clear which version of Vw you are using, but I believe that request #1 & #2 are already possible in Vw2016. 1) 2) - the section cut-plane display of the Clip Cube is a solid color fill wiith attributes defined by the Section Style class. Viewing a Model with the Clip Cube : Vw2016 Help File @zoomer: I have not tried it, but you should be able to assign a RW style to a Projected Section VP as created in the link above. That would achieve what you are asking for. This would achieve *most* of what you are asking for, but it uses a Section VP, not the Clip Cube. You cannot currently use the Clip Cube in any view display mode other than wireframe or OpenGL, but if you were able to do like you're requesting, it would automatically re-render for each slight adjustment of the Clip Cube face, which I know from other threads would drive you insane.

Try the script in this post And there is also the older Merge Text plug-in at Vector Depot, it might still work in newer versions: http://www.vectordepot.com/older_plug-ins.html

Custom IES lights should show the .IES lighting distribution in OpenGL. Currently in Vw2016 SP2, Custom Lights with an IES distribution file do not show any light pattern and therefore do not render as light sources. See this thread for additional information.

@Benson: I thought that IES lights showed illumination in OpenGL, but I went back and double-checked in Vw2016 and you are correct - no light is shown from Custom IES lights in OpenGL. I went ahead and filed a Wish List for item #1 in your OP. Vw2015: I thought I remembered seeing IES lights casting a generic spot light glow in Vw2015, and I went back and confirmed that yes — it did. BUT — it turned out to be only a buggy result of OpenGL not refreshing the lights, and was a left-over from when I changed the light fixture from a Spot to a Custom Light. The light glow wouldn't move in OpenGL when I moved the IES fixture, it was only when I deleted it that it refreshed the OpenGL. So - it appears that Vw2016 has fixed this bug.

It doesn't appear that this bug was listed as being fixed in Vw2016 SP2 Release Notes, so you should submit a Bug Report for it.

I have always found that Custom IES lights do not show the IES distribution in OpenGL. EDIT: ^^^ My recollection above was incorrect, Custom IES lights do not show any light in OpenGL in Vw2016. It would be great if Custom IES lights did show correctly in OpenGL, as this is how Cinema 4D has worked since R12. Quote copied from C4D R12 Help file:

This sounds like it might be related to the bug in this thread: Dual Monitor Color Properties Issue

I posted my current issues viewing Vw2016 help file in multiple browsers & devices with iOS 9.1 at this post in another related thread.

@JimW: Still all the same issues viewing Vw2016 help on iOS 9.1 with multiple browsers, not just Safari. 1) Firefox 1.2 on iPad with iOS 9.1: in Landscape-mode the same issues as I noted using Safari in this other thread (see image from Firefox on iPad below), it's even worse in some ways. Super-zoomed text, can't zoom out. The 'related info' links at the bottom of some pages do not take you to the link, but back to the top of the page. But this seems inconsistent. Overall Results: FAIL Firefox 1.2 landscape-mode on iPad in iOS 9.1 (Note: this zoomed text is not a result of 'pinch-zoom' gestures) 2) Firefox 1.2 on iPhone 5S with iOS 9.1: works in portrait and landscape modes (see attached screen caps), but the 'related info' links on some pages do not always work as noted above in #1. Text width is not respected on some pages (have to scroll sideways to read the text). Overall Results: FAIL 3) Google Chrome 47.0.2526.70 on iPhone 5S with iOS 9.1: works in portrait and landscape modes (see the attached screen caps), but 'related links' on some pages don't take you to the link but to the top of the page. Text width is not respected on some pages (have to scroll sideways to read the text). Overall Results: FAIL Even though some of the browsers might display correctly in landscape or portrait mode, waaay too much valuable screen space is being used by the 'Vectorworks 2016 Help' and Search buttons at the top. On the iPhone, even when it is working correctly, at most you can read three or four lines of text at a time. Furthermore, what I can't understand is why the Vw2015 Help file displays fine on iOS 9.1 without any of these problems. What features were added to the Vw2016 Help files that causes it break it under iOS 9? Hopefully my feedback will help Vectorworks fix these browser issues, but I have to say that having End Users to test OS browser & device compatibility seems more than a little ridiculous as this is the primary responsibility of any web designer. Especially as it affects every browser on iOS 9.1. I should not have to take the time to test each browser and device in order to tell Vectorworks which web pages work correctly. Does no one on the Vectorworks 'Web Team' have any personal or work iOS devices on which they can confirm or deny these help file issues?

I've never tried using Vw Viewer, but I find this hard to believe. No textures in OpenGL? That's unfortunate, to say the least.

That is pretty impressive, nice job on the SubD modeling. It's Vectorworks' fault (definitely not yours) that the label mapping is not 'perfect'. The characters at the beginning and ending of the longer text lines are getting stretched wide, most notably on the 'Up to 10 Applications' line. But you did extremely well using only Vw mapping options. Nice work!

I have not tried this so I don't know how well it works, but a Google search turned up this free tool Solibri IFC Optimizer BUT - I also found this older forum thread warning about using Solibri IFC Optimizer with Vw.